- (AFP) -- Washington raised the stakes in its face-off
with Baghdad over disarmament, reportedly ordering two more aircraft carrier
groups and a hospital ship to prepare for deployment to the Gulf in 96
hours.
-
- Although the Pentagon declined to confirm or deny them,
several television stations were running concordant reports saying the
USS George Washington and another carrier group, as well as the
- 1,000-bed hospital ship USS Comfort, had been ordered
to prepare to leave for the Gulf within four days.
-
- And the White House said it had yet to see evidence from
Iraq that it will comply with a UN disarmament ultimatum and shed its weapons
of mass destruction peacefully.
-
- Iraq denies having such weapons.
-
- "We still have not seen the evidence that Iraq is
willing to change, and that they are willing to comply with all aspects
of the UN resolution which seeks disarmament," spokesman Scott McClellan
said in Crawford, Texas, where President George W. Bush is spending the
holidays at his ranch.
-
- McClellan would not say whether Baghdad was cooperating
with UN inspectors seeking interviews with top Iraqi scientists who may
hold the key to whether Iraq possesses banned weapon systems.
-
- But "there has been a number of indications that
they continue to be unwilling to change their past behavior," he said,
adding: "The regime in Iraq will disarm -- it is their choice how
they will disarm, but they will disarm."
-
- In Baghdad, an Iraqi scientist interviewed by UN arms
inspectors on Friday denied his work was in any way linked to the development
of a nuclear weapons programme that has been banned by the United Nations.
-
- "I have no links with (Iraq's past) nuclear programme,"
scientist Kadhum Jameel told Iraqi television network al-Shebab by telephone.
-
- His comments were broadcast live by the network, which
is controlled by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Udai.
-
- Jameel said the inspectors from the UN's nuclear watchdog,
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were capable of "fabricating
inventions".
-
- The UN inspectors were probing US charges that Baghdad
has acquired aluminium tubing for a clandestine nuclear programme as they
conducted only their second interview with an Iraqi weapons scientist since
resuming work here last month.
-
- A UN spokesman gave few details of the interview with
a "metallurgist from a high visibility state company".
-
- But the Iraqi foreign ministry identified the target
as Dr Kadhum Jameel, an employee of the Al-Rayaa subsidiary of Iraq's military
industries, "specialized in aluminium tubes".
-
- A ministry statement said the tubes were "used in
the manufacture of 81-millimetre calibre, 10-kilometre range missiles,"
a sort of weaponry permitted under UN Security Council resolutions, recapitulating
the argument long advanced by Baghdad.
-
- But both London and Washington have repeatedly insisted
that the tubes serve no ballistic purpose and can only be explained as
a tool for uranium enrichment as part of a clandestine nuclear programme.
-
- Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the UN inspectors, said the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had interviewed a metallurgist
who "provided technical details of a military programme. This programme
has attracted considerable attention as a possible prelude to a clandestine
nuclear programme. The answers will be of great use in completing the IAEA
assessment."
-
- Iraqi officials said one inspections team, consisting
of chemical and missile specialists, went to a site on the southern outskirts
of Baghdad, while a group of biological experts visited an alcohol manufacturing
plant in the capital.
-
- A group of support specialists travelled 400 kilometres
(250 miles) north to Mossul, to arrange lodgings for a branch office that
is to be set up there, they said.
-
- Meanwhile, Turkey, a strategic NATO ally in the 1991
Gulf War, voiced reticence over the prospect of new fighting in the region
as the United States and Iraq continued their face-ff over the terms and
tactics of UN weapons inspections.
-
- And the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the latest
round of US and British strikes on Iraqi no fly zones, claiming they "infringe"
on Iraq's sovereignty.
-
- That was in reaction to word from the US Southern Command,
temporarily based in Qatar, that US and British aircraft attacked an air
military communications facility in southern Iraq in retaliation for the
downing of an unmanned US spy plane earlier this week.
-
- Turkey is facing intense pressure from its key NATO ally
Washington to provide support for a possible operation to topple the regime
in Baghdad.
-
- The United States already has about 65,000 troops in
the Gulf and Turkey and has announced plans to send another 50,000 by early
January.
-
- Earlier, General Hossam Mohammad Amin, head of the Iraqi
body that liaises with the United Nations, said inspectors had "found
no direct or indirect proof" that Iraq possesses weapons prohibited
by the UN.
-
- Amin also hinted at a possible clash between Iraq and
inspectors over scientists now or formerly involved in chemical, biological,
nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
-
- UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which tightened
the inspections regime, gives inspectors the power to take Iraqi weapons
experts out of the country to enable them to speak more freely.
-
- The United States has insisted that the inspectors exercise
that power.
-
-
-
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